Well that was.... Interesting...

Note: DO NOT jump into a ship that's in an Orca IF that Orca was just pulled out of a Ship Maintenance Array. I had managed to store the Orca in the SMA even though it had ships in it and that had not pinged. The story of what happened subsequently is a mess of confused strange events that could only happen in EVE.

Side note: GM's don't get enough recognition for their work. And I'll appologize for one comment last night to GM Homonia. Sorry but part of a stuck character petition is indicating which character has a problem so if I say I can't interact with my main inside EVE it kind of indicates that the character indicated in the petition IS my main. Petitions CAN be sent via the web when in-EVE interface is un-available. So if I was a little short at that point blame it on the 1.5h without a response after the initial GM indicated the situation was being "investigated".

Are you ready for a confused muddle of a story? The facts may or may not be what I'm about to recount, but well that's what happens when things are confused. Not to mention there are probably 5 separate groups involved in this story.

Dramatis Personnae:

The DAFT boys: Dev and Dem and Zam. Much scouting was provided by these guys. Thanks. Our combined scouting kept this muddled situation from resulting in any losses.

Random Russian scout: Magnate with Russian probes. Name unknown. Probably still in system. Or not. Good scouts are like that. Could also belong to the that gank dude a while ago.

The German stealth bomber dude: Noob or not?

The Cheetah and his budies: Cheetah/Hound pilot with probably a Hurricane alt (going by name), a Tempest, a Megathron and a Huginn. (and possibly one other ship but he didn't stick around).

The GM team: GM Syndemic, GM Momonia and GM Zerat

My alt and I: Your narrator.

So I start the evening off with the usual "scan everything down" and get a bookmark on the high sec wormhole. I neglect to actually check out the wormhole's other end in high sec but I did bookmark it. I then decide I've had enough of PI and I'll want to ship the product to high sec and close down the operations on the planets in order not to have to worry about things when I do close things down.

So the first thing I do is decide to switch to my PI hauling ship. I preference a low "to warp" time ship for this. But I had put this Wreathe in my the ship maintenance bay of my Orca. So I jump in the Orca Empty out the Corporate hangar at my POS and start un-anchoring it since we'll no longer need it. Then I jump in the Wreathe that's in the SMB. Things go wrong.

When you get a "Fatal" error message and shutting down the client and re-logging in does not resolve the issue, things are wrong. With an empty Orca floating around my POS the situation is also "sub-optimal".

At this point I start the petition and log my alt in. I get the Orca situation under control, i.e. get a pilot in it to guarantee that it's under control. Eventually I get a reply from GM Syndemic that the situation is being investigated and he can't help me. The wording of the comment seems to indicate that it's a more general situation. A bit of forum querying however seems to indicate no one else is having the same problem I am. Ah good.

And 1.5h without a response or the ability to log in ensues.

At that point my patience wears thin and I send a query on the same petition to see if they are having problems. At this point a new GM (GM Homonia) comes on and managed to get my character in game by moving me and the wreathe I'm in to a station in High sec. Some repackaging and new rigs ensues (thank you for that) and the Wreathe is now usable and she moves me to the high sec system I was in 2-3 days ago... Oh great. And the pilot with the bookmark to high sec that I had not had time to check out? Oh right - that's me.

About this time the DAFT boys start reporting Russian probes in the wormhole system. Interesting. But I get my alt scanning that high sec wormhole so I know how far I have to travel. Lucky I remember what it's xxx-999 code is, so nailing it is fairly fast and easy. Note my alt is in an Iteron V fit for a volume/speed compromise (i.e. it gets to warp MUCH faster than a normal extended Iteron V). I send the Iteron to the HS wormhole and just as I land a neutral stealth bomber jumps in. Coincidence? Initially we assume that he's related to the the Magnate we caught a glimpse of but by the end of the evening, we'll not be so sure. So my alt jumps to high sec and starts to orbit the wormhole at 5km under cloak.

30 Jumps! ouch. At this point I indicate to GM Homonia that I am beginning to suspect that it was the Orca/SMB/SMA interaction and that there are 2 more ships that may be affected. I ask if I should repackage those as well. I indicate that reducing the chance of a repeat incident would be worth losing the rigs. I start motoring towards the wormhole.

During this time we get MORE activity at the wormhole. A cheetah also comes in and out. Oh and the SB seems to want to play with the DAFT boys. He indicates that he's a noob and forgot to bookmark the exit. You can believe as much of that as you want but either way one of the DAFT boys provides a bookmark at a random planet for the idiot. He picks up the BM and eventually makes his way back to the wormhole. At one point he launches some bombs around the wormhole (one of the daft boys is cloaked up with eyes on the wormhole from the inside at this point). We play with his mind a bit by making him think his bomb may have damaged one of the cloaked ships (Side note I really need to test this one day to see the exact effects of a bomb on a cloaked ship - up to and including log reports so that if I want to mess with someone's mind I know what's truly possible or not).

Then there was the Cheetah scouting in and out. This one we can say probably had nothing to do with the stealth bomber, and since it was the scout, nothing to do with the Magnate (who was probably going "WTF?!?" if he had stuck around by the end of the evening.

It's about this point in time that I get a convo with the 3rd GM and with 15 jumps to go get Letrange and his Wreathe moved back into the wormhole system. Some random spot in space but at least I don't land on the stealth bomber who had just jumped out. Its eventually established that I should probably log out with the ships that may have a problem in he Orca and that downtime should fix them if there's anything wrong with them. Should something still be wrong with them after downtime, I'm re-open the Petition.

At this point I switch up to my cloaky Loki and try and bait the SB back into the hole using my alt's Iteron. No luck. Humm this Nemesis sure looks like it's AFK. So I amuse myself for a bit getting him moved 20km off the wormhole. There with the cloaked hauler/scout I should have plenty of warning if he tries to jump back into action. Eventually I head back and get the PI materials pickup done and then use the Orca to move it and extra stuff back to high sec (again no reaction to either the Wreathe zipping around, nor the Orca going in and out. The Cheetah is observed again though.

As one last part of the operation I move the Covetor up to high sec and park it in a station. Oh that's interesting a yellow Megathron and Tempest wandering around outside the station. Oh and what's this? that scouting character has changed up to a Hound. Interesting. You don't think? Na, couldn't happen right?

Sure enough the hound ends up at the wormhole (remember I've still got my alt in his iteron cloaked up orbiting the wormhole in HS). So I haul ass with the pod and jump it into w-space and off to my POS as my alt keeps an eye on things. Back in the Loki, it's time to keep an eye on things.

So sure enough between my alt, my main on both sides of the WH and the DAFT boys keeping an eye on things, Guess what shows up? Yep that's right, the Megathron, the Tempest and one other BS/BC which I forget. Then after some hole jumping the third BS/BC and the tempest are replace by a Hurricane and eventually a Huginn. After some wormhole baiting by this little squadron, during which I indicate that indeed we are aware of them so it's not like they'll surprise us, we get them to waste quite a bit of time for absolutely no results. At one point they uncloaked my hauling alt (man that took a while) and they finally figured out that we weren't going to be panicked into stupid moves, since we had full situational awareness, they moved off.

Rule of thumb: Unless you're sure of a one shot kill, fights within jumping distance of a WH are for suckers and gankers. Eventually I logged my alt in the Orca and my main in the Loki.

Crazy night. Things were "busy".